National newscast entities prepare national news broadcasts or other programs of interest that are presented to a nationwide audience via a programming channel controlled by that particular national newscast entity. For example, if a newsworthy event of interest occurs in a small town in Colorado, the national newscast entity may wish to include a story regarding the newsworthy event in a newscast. The national newscast entity may obtain a report on the event from a local program provider that is initially reporting on the local event. The local report on the newsworthy event may then be incorporated into the national newscast entity's newscast.
One method currently used to obtain local reports on a newsworthy event is to have a local agent record all local newscasts. When the national newscast entity desires the report for incorporation into their national news broadcast or other program, the national newscast entity contacts the local agent. The local agent then manually retrieves the media content corresponding to the portion of the local newscast pertaining to the newsworthy event, and then sends that media content to the national newscast entity. Such media content may be sent in a variety of manners, such as over the Internet or over a dedicated communication path. However, this process is time consuming, cumbersome and expensive. Often, the received quality of the media content has been degraded due to the storage medium and/or the communication medium that is used to send the media content to the national newscast entity.
Another currently used method to obtain local media content pertaining to the newsworthy event is to have local uplink facilities to directly broadcast the local newscasts to the national newscast entity. The broadcasting of the local newscast may occur over a dedicated communication path, such as a satellite transmission path, a dedicated cable path, or the like. However, since there are so many different local program providers, the cost of provisioning so many different uplink facilities is prohibitively expensive.
Accordingly, there is a need in the arts to provide media content access in a more efficient manner and at a reduced cost.